


operation tulips (your two lips should kiss)

by devviepuu



Series: in which storybrooke is a hipster maine brooklyn and ruby sasses emma.  a lot. [1]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Captain Cobra, Background Red Beauty, CSRR, Captain Swan Role Reversal Valentine's Day 2020, Childhood Friends, F/M, Gen, Idiots in Love, Language of Flowers, Mutual Pining, idiots-to-lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-19 02:26:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22603678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devviepuu/pseuds/devviepuu
Summary: It's Valentine's Day, the busiest day in the known universe for a flower shop.  People would be expecting their flowers, and Emma Swan--part-time waitress and proprietor of a small pop-up flower business--knew this.That was why she was here, standing at the door of Game of Thorns and hating the decorations and their cheerfulness and, most importantly, the person who would be working the register today:  Killian Jones.  He always worked the register on Valentine’s Day--arranged the bouquets, tied the ribbons, flirted with the customers regardless of gender.And when she walked in and felt the full force of his attention on her, the way his eyebrow would quirk up and his smile would broaden and the way he would say, “Hello, beautiful,” as if he not only meant it but as if they were the only two people in the universe--it would be a lot.Especially since she needed his help.
Relationships: Captain Hook | Killian Jones/Emma Swan
Series: in which storybrooke is a hipster maine brooklyn and ruby sasses emma.  a lot. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1982063
Comments: 25
Kudos: 129





	operation tulips (your two lips should kiss)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carpedzem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/carpedzem/gifts).



> with infinite gratitude and admiration for [@carpedzem](https://carpedzem.tumblr.com/), who created the artwork that inspired this story as part of the Captain Swan Valentine's Day Role Reversal (2020)
> 
> thanks to @RecoveringTheSatellites and @katie-dub for laughs, feedback and cheerleading  
> and to @profdanglais, who had to fix the spelling mistakes in this story twice and did so with grace and poise and only a minimum of complaining

[ ](https://carpedzem.tumblr.com/post/190733655439/hello-guuuys-here-i-am-again-taking-part-in)

The average temperature in Storybrooke, Maine in February was something like negative bajillion degrees. It was a scientific measurement that translated to “pretty fucking cold” and Emma Swan knew this, deep down in her bones and what her best friend Ruby called her “scrawny, skinny ass”--which, in addition to being repetitive and honestly, pretty rude--well.

Emma had never gotten any complaints about her ass. Not from Neal or Graham or Walsh or--anyone.

But she did feel the cold. Acutely, desperately, painfully in that kind of way that made her want to burrow her head--and her ass--right down into the mattress, under a blanket, and never leave her bed.

And today--Valetine’s Day, because why the fuck not--was that kind of cold. It was possible that Emma had never wished to be under a blanket more in her life than she did right at this very second, staring down the cheerfully-decorated front door of Game of Thorns.

Valentine’s Day, also known as the busiest day in the known universe for a flower shop, and Emma Swan knew this, too. For four years running, her pop-up over at The Good Witch cafe had been chaotic and swarming with people, the kind who oohed and aahed and made small talk while they sipped artisanal lattes with locally-sourced milk, frothed and poured in the shape of a heart and oh-so-instagrammable on the carefully distressed farmhouse-style tables that had never seen the inside of a farm.

Ruby had no shame when it came to making it seem worth the premium she charged over Darkstar Donuts and had almost made Marco cry when he’d built her the tables but she wouldn’t let him sand down the imperfections in the wood. Then again, Marco had never heard of Instagram.

It was only a matter of time before Ruby started labling the milk bottles with the names of the actual fucking cows at this point. They were the thick glass kind--the bottles, not the cows--and Ruby kept them in an open cooler “for the aesthetic, Emma, obviously,” and for the tourists, the day-trippers and the stragglers emigrating from Boston to Portland, further up and further in, perpetually in search of something more “authentic.” _They_ liked that Ruby Lucas had seen the inside of a farm and knew the cows’ names and they liked that Ruby kept the locals--who still called the place Granny’s even though Ruby’s grandmother had sensibly retired to somewhere less fucking cold, and already knew the cows’ names because they had sold Ruby the milk--hooked with the dark roast plain drip she served, and how just enough of the regulars hung around for “local color” during brunch hours.

Leroy’s grumpy hungover rants had gotten a write-up in _The Portland Press Herald_ and were now the stuff of legend which, amazingly, had the effect of finally getting him to shut up.

The tourists paid the bills, and they liked the organic, non-pasteurized, non-GMO milk and the clean white subway tiles, the butcher block counters and the faux-industrial light fixtures that dangled between the rounded ventilation shafts that had saved Ruby an expensive ceiling install. They obsessed over the Edison bulbs that blew out all the time but gave the place just the right ambience and warmth--literal warmth, because the things threw off so much heat--and they _loved_ the “slow flowers” pop-up that Emma had started on a whim four years ago, and they would be _expecting_ their flowers, goddammit, and that was why she was here, standing at the door of Game of Thorns and hating the decorations and their cheerfulness and, most importantly, the person who would be working the register today.

He always worked the register on Valentine’s Day--arranged the bouquets, tied the ribbons, flirted with the customers regardless of gender. He charmed them with a wink and a smile and that stupid, _stupid_ accent until they’d bought more than they meant to and thanked him for the privilege.

It was snowing, but he’d already swept the front stoop. Of course he had--it made the place look even more inviting, all cozy and warm and gorgeous like a postcard in the already-pink late afternoon sunlight. Every visible inch of window space sported a heart-shaped decoration, and they fluttered on strings against the glass as people moved around inside of the shop.

Emma did not want to go in.

She _had_ to.

But she also had to give herself a minute to prepare, to brace herself, because if--when--she walked in and felt the full force of his attention on her, the way his eyebrow would quirk up and his smile would broaden and the way he would say, “Hello, beautiful,” as if he not only meant it but as if they were the only two people in the universe--it would be a _lot_.

It always had been a lot, ever since they were kids. Teenagers, really, and he’d only gotten better-looking in the fifteen years she’d known him, while Emma, in this moment, felt exactly the opposite of beautiful with her hair bedraggled and her jeans wet up to the knees because _someone_ had tried to help her in the greenhouse, accidentally leaving a leaky pipe that froze and then burst because Maine was so _fucking_ cold in February.

And her flowers, ruined.

\--

That was the first thing he said.

“Hello, beautiful--” and then cut himself off before he finished the words. “Swan, what in the bloody hell happened to your flowers?”

She was crushing them against her chest, their petals all brown tinged and frost burned. Her White Emperor tulips that she forced, they were her favorites, and people had started actually _ordering_ them ahead of time and she was not going to let Killian Jones see her cry on Valentine’s Day of all fucking days.

God, when they were kids, he used to send her candygrams on Valentine’s Day, the kind that the boosters club would sell for a dollar and it would have a handwritten message on it in his distinctive scrawl.

She bit her lip. Comprehension dawned on Killian’s face. “Burst pipe, aye?” he said, and Emma could only nod. A customer walked between them, making their way toward the table of small flower arrangements paired with gift-wrapped books. “Blind Date With A Book”, Belle called it, and this year she had added bath products and candles to the hand-lettered display. The small packages even had name tags on them with brief plot summaries--that had been in _The Portland Press Herald_ , too, along with an eloquent discourse on the proprietress--Belle, who, along with Ruby, represented “the second-generation wave of entrepreneurs revitalizing Storybrooke” and her sometime assistant with the “devilishly good looks and charm to match.”

Seriously. That was the quote.

“Right then,” Killian said. “Did you lose the entire lot?”

Emma shrugged. “Henry,” she said. “He was trying to help.”

Killian’s expression softened into something so affectionate that it almost hurt to look at. “Ah,” he said knowingly. “Lad wanted to help his mum on her busy day, yeah?”

“Something like that,” Emma said.

And it wasn’t--she shouldn’t--it was stupid of her, really.

Because Killian wasn’t Henry’s father.

Okay, so he had asked her out. Once. When they were kids. Or--he had told her brother David that he wanted to, which, when you’re fourteen, is basically the same thing. And Emma had been the new kid in town, just adopted, waiting for everything to go to shit because of course it always did, eventually, and it’s not like she hadn’t _wanted_ to kiss Killian Jones, inasmuch as a fourteen-year-old knows how to want those things, it’s just that she had never quite believed it when David had said it.

So they were friends, instead.

Best friends, maybe.

And high school happened, the way it does. Emma had gotten used to seeing him with his tongue down her friend Tink’s throat, and he had still sent the candygrams. Tink, Ariel, Jasmine, Ursula. Whatever. She wasn’t--hadn’t been--jealous, of Killian and all of the other girls--the princess squad with their insane hair and gorgeous smiles--who had suddenly realized that he wasn’t just hot, he was nice and funny and clever and always the smartest person in the room but not, like, a dick about it.

And then she’d met Neal.

“Let me grab those, love,” Killian said, coming toward her, gesturing at the dying flowers.

“No!” She said it more harshly than she intended to, and he stiffened. His arms immediately withdrew, and his open expression shut down. “I mean, it’s okay.” There was nothing to do with the ruined blossoms except dump them in the trash behind the counter. “But I do need your help.”

Saying those words--it was painful. Emma did not need help. Emma did not need saving.

Neal had taught her that. Neal had taught her that was the kind of person she _needed_ to be, if only to avoid more people like him. Quick with a smile--because it got him out of trouble. Nice--when it was easier for him. Smart--but not smart enough to do the work. The kind of guy where Emma always found herself saying, “he’s different with me, I promise.”

The only good thing about Neal was Henry.

David had never liked him, not that Emma was ever in the mood for his patriarchal big brother bullshit, but she hadn’t realized in time that it was about more than protecting her non-existent virtue.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until she was in front of the sentencing judge that she’d realized.

Neal had been self-medicating, dealing pot on the side, stealing things to cover his expenses. He’d given her a watch that was more expensive than anything she’d ever seen in her entire life and left her to take the rap for possession of stolen property. He’d also left her with Henry.

None of that was Killian’s fault, of course--but sometimes, the weight of her what-might-have-beens was overwhelming. Like when she was soaking wet, freezing cold, about to lose hundreds of dollars worth of business, and needed to come crawling to Killian Jones for help. _Especially_ when Killian Jones had rolled back into town five years ago, helping Belle get the shop up and running after her father died, and then proceeded to outsell her _every_ year.

He didn’t do it on purpose. Game of Thorns ran a completely different type of business, flowers and books and Belle’s hand-blended tea. Emma’s pop-up was small, a one-woman operation, from back before Ruby had renovated her grandmother’s diner and when she was waiting tables side-by-side with her friend, struggling with a five-year-old and living on her brother’s couch, trying to figure out what the fuck to do with her life. She’d missed college, and had spent five hundred hours during her pregnancy paired up in the local community garden with Anton.

Which, Emma always reminded herself, was a hell of a lot better than prison.

She’d started making table settings for the diner and, eventually, people had started asking to buy them. Ruby loved it--”gives the place cache,” she said.

It surprised Emma, how much she loved flowers. She loved growing things. It taught her patience and how to find quiet and how to plan ahead and how to accept her mistakes because, when it came to plants, things always died. “You don’t know a plant until you’ve killed it three times,” Anton used to say. He’d taught her to start seeds and grow bulbs and, eventually, encouraged her to set up the little eight-by-eight space behind her brother’s loft that was all she could afford to heat and which her kid, in his zeal to be the amazing and supportive and helpful person that he was, had accidentally frozen the day before her biggest day of the season.

She needed help.

“I really am sorry,” Emma said. “I just--I need your help.” Maybe saying it again would take the resentment out of her voice.

Killian’s wry grin suggested that she had not been successful.

\--

Watching Killian Jones work with flowers bordered on the pornographic. He’d thrown on his pea coat, layered an oversized scarf over it, and jammed his knit cap on his head, barely calling out an explanation to Belle on their way out the door. He insisted on driving her back to the scene of the crime in his pickup, because “we can’t possibly carry all of that back to the diner, love,” and he was vehement that she run inside to put on dry clothes.

He made quick work of clearing off the spot on the potting bench where the injured tulips were.

“Don’t throw them away,” Emma reminded him, because she could--and would--snip off the spent blooms and save the bulbs for replanting, and he’d leveled a glare at her.

“Right,” he said. “What else have you got to work with?”

They were crammed in so closely together, because eight-by-eight didn’t mean much with two fully-grown humans. He’d doffed his coat already, rolling up his sleeves as she pointed out the unscathed pink catkins on the pussy willows she’d forced and the cut branches of crabapple blossoms that seemed relatively unscathed. It must have been a frost pocket right over the tulips, and wasn’t that just her luck.

Emma watched him as he nimbly picked the few dead or damaged blooms off of the tree branches, feeling hypnotized. His forearm muscles jumped from his movements and Emma couldn’t tear her eyes from the bramble of scars crawling up his left wrist and disappearing underneath his sleeve. There was a tattoo interwoven between the scars, intricate work that wrapped around his arm like a thicket. It was hard not to watch him and wonder what else his hands might be capable of.

He wouldn’t meet her eyes, though, as she watched him, clearing his throat and abruptly handing over the arrangement. “I’ll bring in the rest from the truck,” he said.

Emma turned, her mouth half-open in protest, and he went back out into the cold and pulled the drop cloth off of the bed of the pickup, revealing the white potted orchids underneath.

She could have--tried to--just buy white roses, whatever he and Belle had left from their suppliers. They ordered in from the bigger wholesalers, the ones who brought up stock from places that were less fucking cold, and Emma expected they wouldn’t have sold out yet. It wouldn’t be the same, and Emma would have to give her customers a discount, but it would still be something beautiful.

Killian, however, had insisted on the orchids. It was her custom, and the reason she could charge so much, to put the entire tulip bulb into a vase, letting the full structure of the plant be a part of the arrangement instead of just the bloom.

It had never occurred to Emma before that Killian would have noticed that.

As he brought them in, Emma repotted them, expertly arranging the branches until she had formed a series of small sculptures in successive pots. He hovered on the edges of her workspace--because eight-by-eight and two fully-grown humans--and watched her with barely a few inches between them, his breath warm on the back of her neck. The orchids had a totally different look, of course, but she was able to achieve something similar to her original design. And--even better--she would be able to charge full price.

They made a good team.

\--

That’s what he said. “We make a good team.”

He said it, and his eyes looked the way his hands felt against her skin, all soft and open and tender, blue even in the near-darkness of the winter twilight. There was, she saw, something sad in the depths of his irises, a secret something that she could almost decipher, and it shook her right down to her core because she recognized that look.

He said it, and he looked at her, and she pushed him up against the truck and kissed him. She kissed him, hard, pushing and grasping and taking until both of them were out of breath. The full force of his attention on her, that was a _lot,_ but that was nothing compared to all of him against her and the way that his fingers finally wound their way through her hair and ghosted across her cheek, caressing her as if her skin was a petal on one of the flowers in his bouquets—one of the tulips in her greenhouse—delicate and worthy of care and attention. There was the metal of his rings, cool as his finger traced the line of her cheekbone, and when his mouth opened and a sound escaped Emma wasn’t sure if it was him or her—but kissing Killian Jones was exactly as good as she remembered.

The world went dark around her, narrowed to only those feelings—the metal, his fingers, her hair, the sound he made—him for sure, that time, because it was a groan and there was something in it, a mix of desperation and longing and—was that _resignation_?—before he sighed, his body relaxing and tensing at the same time as he pushed her hips backward, maneuvering them so that they spun around and now she was the one up against the truck. There was the sound again, deeper and longer that time, and that’s what made Emma pull away, frowning and trying to form words even when she forgot what they were, but he chased after her, looking for more, his mouth hot and hungry and needy.

Resignation.

Like it was inevitable.

Emma wanted to believe that, like something about them was destined or meant to be, but it wasn’t _that_ kind of sound, more like disappointment or sadness or like he knew better, like they _should_ know better, but he couldn’t help himself no matter how hard he tried. She pulled back, harder this time, feeling the heaviness of his breathing—and hers—their exhalations making puffs of white air between them.

She didn’t know what it meant, the noise all rough and sad, but it sounded bad, and—that was a lot, too.

“Swan--”

“Yeah, okay,” she said. “Sorry. Just--thanks. For the help.”

“Anytime,” he said. He sounded sincere. Emma didn’t know what she sounded like, the words ringing hollow in her ears. They were still--his arms were still around her, and hers around him, so she stepped away, trying not to pull herself back too quickly or to physically recoil.

Killian followed her movements with his gaze and, with one last exhalation dissipating into the fucking cold, opened the door for her and watched her climb in.

\--

They had never made a habit of it--the kissing. It had only happened once.

Twice.

Three times, now, and that mattress option was looking better by the minute.

You don’t know a plant until you’ve killed it three times, after all--what it needed or wanted or expected from you--and, okay, now she knew it for sure, had killed it dead, any hope of anything more than what they had. Not that she had been--hoping, that is. They were friends, and once they had been _best_ friends, and he was still the kind of guy who would drop everything to help her no matter how resentfully she asked for it, and do it like it was nothing at all.

Emma leaned her head against the window, trying to resist the urge to bang her forehead against the glass. The truck was still moving pretty slowly; she could still make a break for it. In five seconds, she was just going to _Charlie’s Angels_ roll it right out of there--five, four, three--

Too late. They were already pulling in to a spot in front of the diner. The Good Witch.

Whatever.

“Are those string lights?” Killian sounded incredulous.

Ruby had already gotten out to sweep the steps too, apparently, and had gone the extra mile to clean up the patio, turning on the industrial-style string lights that formed a sort of canopy over the cafe tables. There were candles lit on every table--probably from Game of Thorns--and blankets piled up next to the door, as if anyone in their right mind could possibly want to canoodle on Valentine’s Day of all days in the fucking cold of Storybrooke, Maine.

But it looked gorgeous, and that was all that mattered, that and the sign already lit up in the late afternoon semi-darkness and how just the right filter would make the bulbs on the sign and the bulbs strung across the courtyard look like they were glowing and everyone who hadn’t thought to canoodle outside on Valentine’s Day of all days would suddenly wonder why they hadn’t considered it as a date night option.

There was a fire going outside, roaring merrily from a black aboveground vessel. It was--oh, holy shit.

It was a cauldron.

Fucking Ruby.

She probably had marshmallows for s’mores ready inside.

God, Ruby was good. That was definitely going to end up in the next _Portland Press Herald_ write-up, which could now include a sidebar on the ‘slow flowers’ Valentine’s Day bouquets, curated and arranged on the farmhouse-style tables, because Kililan Jones had saved the goddamn day.

Henry pushed open the diner door and nearly fell down the steps in his excitement, running to meet them at the pickup and demanding that Killian hand him one of the arrangements. “Mom,” he said excitedly, “Ruby said that after we get these set up, we could have s’mores!”

Emma bit her lip on the small smile that instinctively formed, rolling her eyes and turning to Killian before she could even think about it, because he was there and she needed someone to share her sense of--ugh, just, whatever this was. He was looking at her kid with a full smile on his face and he said, without hesitation, “Aye, Swan, we must allow the lad his s’mores, don’t you think?”

“There’s cocoa, too,” Henry said.

“Well then,” Emma said. “As long as there is cocoa.”

\--

“You’re blushing,” Ruby said.

“Am not,” Emma retorted. Denial--it was an instinct. But also--

“It’s really--”

“Fucking cold outside,” Ruby said. “Yeah. I know. And I know you, and I know that’s not what this is.”

Shit. It was like the woman could smell trouble. What was that about, anyway?

“Oh,” Ruby said. Her smile was unfair; evil and perfectly red from the lipstick that matched her highlights.

“Don’t,” Emma said.

“Uh-huh. You totally did, didn’t you?” It was an accusation, if an accusation could be gleeful.

“Shut up,” Emma said.

“That’s a yes,” Ruby said. “Was it as good as you remembered?”

Emma wondered if it would be worth it, to go back out to the greenhouse or to beg Killian for more orchids, if that would be okay after she hurled the vase in her hands at Ruby’s head, and decided the answer was no. But her legs felt for an instant as if they were growing actually into the floor of the diner as she stood there.

“Oh my god,” Ruby said. “You’re blushing even worse now.”

Emma wished for something, anything to throw at her. Maybe there was a knife or a fork or a cup full of hot coffee or fucking marshmallows for s’mores handy she could use as a projectile.

But--

That noise--

She couldn’t get it out of her head, and suddenly her legs weren’t rooted into the floor but vaguely wobbly and Ruby, with her nose for trouble, lost the grin on her face and shifted immediately into concerned. “Em, seriously,” she said, leaning on the table for emphasis, the other hand on her hip and her expression all focused on the business at hand. The business of Emma, and Killian, and their hookup and the flowers and the mess of it all and Emma wasn’t going to cry.

She hadn’t cried over Killian Jones since graduation, since she’d run into him at an afterparty, where it was late enough and everyone was drunk enough and nostalgic enough that anything--everything--seemed like a good idea, and she’d kissed him. It had been epic, the kind that happened in slow motion while a cheesy pop song played in the background and if it was a movie, the camera would have swirled around them, slowly, dramatically, waiting for that moment where her feet left the ground because he was squeezing her so tightly and they were that wrapped up in each other.

Until.

She’d come to her senses and remembered that she was _with somebody_ , for fuck’s sake, and she’d already been suspicious about her pregnancy, about Henry, and she’d been wearing the watch that would eventually land her in the shit and if she’d known already that Neal was getting ready to run she probably wouldn’t have pulled away, but she did, and there was no taking that back.

Emma hadn’t cried over Killian Jones since he’d come back into town five years ago, the first time he’d stayed longer than a few days or a holiday since graduation. Emma had spent those years raising her kid and doing her comm service and working shifts at the diner, all the while gratefully but reluctantly living off of her brother’s charity. So, okay, maybe she’d be lying if she said there was never a part of her that was always waiting for Killian’s occasional visits, for the hug she would get from him when he left again, the hug that enveloped her and smelled like his soap and the leather of his jacket.

He hadn’t smelled like either of those things the last time they’d kissed--the time before tonight--he’d been drunk, doing shots with David as if they were still nineteen--and smelled like rum, the dark spicy kind that Emma sometimes put in her Coke just to see the expression on Killian’s face when she did it, of pure disgust with an exaggerated eye roll and the eyebrows all the way up into his hairline like he couldn’t even believe what he was seeing.

Killian had smelled like cold tonight, the fucking cold February Maine air mixed with the humus she’d topdressed her tulips with, earthy and a little bit sweet and she’d been mesmerized, right up until the moment when he--

“I don’t think he wanted to,” Emma said. “He did this thing--”

There was another noise, mercifully interrupting the replay in her head, and Ruby snorted.

He’d definitely wanted to, that time with the rum, she had been able to _feel_ how much he wanted it as he had her up against the wall of the house as they stood on the old front porch, the way all of him leaned into all of her and she felt like she was being devoured, if the gentlest touch she’d ever felt in her life could eat her whole and make her crave it. But she’d pulled away--again--she’d had to, because he had come back with Belle, who was in town to clean up the flower shop after her father died, just another member of his princess squad with perfect hair and a sweet smile only this one actually kind of complemented Killian with the way they liked the same books and the same music and Belle always appreciated exactly how smart Killian was. Only Emma had walked into the diner the next day--still a diner, then--and caught Ruby and Belle in an embrace that made her very grateful they were about to swap out the old counters, and part of her wanted to run straight back to Killian and maybe finish what they had started, but he had been drunk, and she was an idiot, and she wanted to climb into a hole and pull it in after her out of sheer embarrassment. It was fine; she had a kid and a life and if Belle and Ruby were a thing he wasn’t staying anyway, so there was no harm done.

That’s what she told herself.

He had come back to Storybrooke permanently about a year ago--ten months, two weeks, five days--which she knew only because Henry’s birthday had been right around then, and not because she had been counting.

“Oh, please,” Ruby said. “That boy is warm for your form, girl.”

It was Emma’s turn to snort, because that was what Ruby had said back in the day, “He is warm for your form, girl, go break yourself off a piece of _that_ ,” and Emma said, “Do people even say that any more? Because I think you used to say that back in high school.”

“It was true then and it’s true now,” Ruby said. “It’s not his fault you’re a complete idiot.”

“I am not,” Emma protested.

“Please.” Ruby was smirking again. “You thought _he and Belle_ were a thing.”

“Can you just let that go already, please?” Emma said.

“Ahh, my own true love,” Ruby said, and Emma turned to see Belle walking in. Ruby reached out to give her a playful swat on the ass and Belle just--she had one of her classic looks trained on her beloved: the half-amused, half-exasperated, “you’re better than this but I don’t have time to deal with your bullshit right now” look that made Emma laugh every time. “You can settle something between us now that you’re here.”

“Oh,” Belle said, and her expression shifted immediately into something neither gentle nor amused.

“Emma’s being an idiot,” Ruby said, giving Emma an expectant look.

And Emma knew what Belle was going to say, all “that’s a little harsh, babe,” because that’s what she usually said when Ruby got feisty and Belle wanted to keep everyone in smiles but what Belle actually said was, “Oh, is this about the Killian thing?”

The. What.

And there was nothing in Belle’s expression to suggest that she gave a flying fuck whether or not Emma smiled. Like, ever again.

\--

The bell over the front door rang as it opened and the man himself stepped in, looking sheepish. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said, bowing his head very slightly, his cheeks flushed from the fucking cold. “Henry has sent me in to remind us all that he was promised s’mores.”

Ruby laughed, Belle broke into a smile, and Emma bit her lip.

“I’m afraid he was quite insistent,” Killian added.

“Cocoa, too, right?” Emma said.

Killian chuckled. “Aye. He did mention it. Several times.” He walked to the counter, busying himself putting together a tray of ingredients for s’mores. Emma followed him, slipping behind the bar and getting a pot of milk going under the steamer of the fancy Italian espresso machine that cost more than several (dozen) of her paychecks but fit “the aesthetic, Em,” with its intimidating metallic facade. The noise of the frothing milk was almost enough to drown out the loop in her head, and she let it go on a few seconds longer than was strictly necessary until she felt Ruby’s questioning gaze burning a hole into her skull.

Emma handed Killian the pot of milk and the jar of cocoa powder--”not syrup, Em, what do you think this is, a freaking Starbucks?”--and pulled out four teacups, and when she looked at him, he was smiling all soft and gentle and Emma could feel his fingertips and the way they moved on her skin and all she could see was “we make a good team” and the noise was momentarily banished from her brain.

Emma wanted to keep that look forever, wrapping it up in the ribbons and pink paper hearts that had fluttered in the Game of Thorns window earlier that day, arranging the words like one of Killian’s bouquets, and she wanted to watch his hands while he did it.

“Let me give you a hand with that,” she said, and it was like a wall of ice went up between them, the way the warmth immediately vanished as though it was physically being drained out of him.

“Quite all right, Swan,” he said. “I’ve got this. And then--” Killian glanced at Belle “--I thought I might run back up to the shop.”

“I told Chip he could stay and read while he waited for his mum,” Belle said.

Killian acknowledged her with a nod, and the door shut behind him.

Third time. _Shit_.

“Oh, dear,” Belle said, making a _tsk_ -ing sound. “This is really so much worse than I thought.”

And Ruby laughed and said, “Right?”

And Belle looked even less amused than she had before.

\--

When Emma asked, “What Killian thing?” her voice sounded small and hollow in her ears, which were full of the pulse of her blood rushing, echoing with the noise he had made, the small sad sigh pounding in rhythm with Emma’s own heartbeat. Ruby gave Belle a look this time, the kind that said, “do you see the kind of shit I am trying to deal with here” and Belle shook her head, in total agreement with her girlfriend.

They stared at each other, just long enough for Emma to feel uncomfortable, and then Ruby nodded, slowly. “Okay,” she said, answering an unspoken question. “That’s my cue.”

“Where do you think you’re going?” Emma demanded. Belle was gorgeous, petite and thin and not in any way intimidating except that Emma was certain no good would come of this.

“Your kid is outside in the fucking cold. He has pointy sticks, marshmallows and an open flame,” Ruby said. “You think maybe we shouldn’t leave him unsupervised?”

Oh. Fair.

But--

The look Belle turned on Emma as the door closed wasn’t gentle. It was, “tell me you’re smarter than this”. It was, “please reassure me that you aren’t this stupid”.

“Um,” Emma said. “I hope it’s okay that Killian left you for a while today.”

It was, “oh, honey, _no_ you did not just say that” and it was a fucking weapon, with nothing Emma could say in response.

“Sure,” Belle said, her voice a bit flat. “As though I could have stopped him.”

There was nothing to say to that, nothing that made sense, because Belle’s words didn’t even make sense, which itself didn’t make sense because Belle, above all things, was always logical and focused.

And kind, but she seemed to have abandoned that for the moment, so maybe logic had also fallen behind.

“Um,” Emma said again. “Okay.”

“Emma.”

Emma closed her eyes. The look, the “we make a good team”, and the way it had faded so completely, wrapped up in the noise like Killian’s scars intertwined with his tattoos. She was _not_ going to cry.

“Emma, you can’t keep doing this. It’s not right. You can’t just--Killian’s not the kind of person you can just casually kiss sometimes--”

Once every five years, but she wasn’t counting.

“--and then walk away. Especially after what he’s been through.”

He’d lived in New York and Boston and Portland and even, for a while, in London, and that was where all of the shit went down, or so she’d heard. Tragic love story--Emma had definitely recognized that look in his eyes--and a tragic accident, and he’d come back to Storybrooke and made it his home again as soon as he’d recovered. Physically, at least.

“You can’t come running to him for help and then turn around and imply he can’t do something on his own, Emma. He’s still working through what happened with his hand and how it’s going to impact him long-term and you assuming that he can’t _do_ things--”

Wait.

“What the fuck is _that_ suposed to mean?”

He’d come home licking his wounds still, of course, literally--figuratively--whatever, though she wouldn’t be surprised if some of the rum had bled through and come rushing out of his pores, judging by the empty bottles she occasionally found after he and David spent long nights together on the porch or in the living room, one or both of them passed out on the nearest horizontal surface--because their bodies couldn’t even _pretend_ they were nineteen--when she checked on them in the mornings.

“And then _kissing_ him, really, Emma, were you even thinking?”

“Belle,” Emma said. “Seriously. I swear. I have no idea what you are talking about.”

The “you can’t possibly be this stupid” wasn’t implied this time.

“You cannot,” Belle muttered to herself, “possibly by this much of an idiot.”

“Hey,” Emma said, and for the first time, Belle looked contrite.

“He never told you, did he?”

Emma shrugged.

“Why he stayed? Why he works in the shop with me?”

\--

Henry set a marshmallow on fire, and Ruby took a picture; Emma could see it in her mind’s eye, the way the glow of the flame highlighted the delighted grin on his face, the magic-hour lighting of the early twilight, the window from Game of Thorns still lit up in the background.

The hearts, strung up against the glass.

The gentle inch of snow that had accumulated.

“He never told you, did he?” Belle had asked, and now that was twisted up and tied with the sight of resignation and sadness and the look in his eyes when all she’d been reaching for was “we make a good team”.

He’d never told her; about his injury and his hand and how they hadn’t been sure if they could save it, or if or how it could be usable again, or how much his life had truly changed in that moment.

Threes. Things she didn’t know, listed in threes.

Emma’s clients came and went, happily forking over the money she wouldn’t have been able to earn without Killian’s help.

He’d never told her, why he’d come back to Storybrooke (to heal) or to work in the shop with Belle (because it was easy work with someone he loved, and tying the ribbons and working with flowers was good for “ADL” therapy).

Henry drank two cups of cocoa and was never going to sleep again--or for a week at least--until the sugar high crashed all at once.

“Ruby told me the cow’s name, Mom!”

Of-fucking-course she did.

He’d never told her about the way he’d felt in high school and the times they’d kissed.

Three times, they’d kissed.

Shit, shit, shit.

“Yeah,” Ruby said, her smile only slightly less evil now that her girlfriend had read Emma the riot act on “the Killian thing” and they were sitting outside in the fucking cold. Emma had three blankets. “So what are you gonna do about it?”

She didn’t know. Add it to the list--add it three fucking times, as far as she was concerned. What she wanted to do was kiss him again, without the noise this time, kiss him and feel his hands on her, on her face and in her hair, instead of on the catkins and branches and petals, feel them fall lower and explore, her neck, her back, her front--and lower--and watch the scars and tattoos disappear up into his sleeve and then see what they looked like without the sleeve, to see what all of him looked like without all of the clothes, and to find out once and for all what his hands could do.

“Oh,” said Henry. “Is this about the Killian thing? I’m really glad he was able to help you today.”

Ruby shrieked, her laughter reverberating between the flickering fire and the smile on Henry’s face, and no--no, no, no, please no--

“Henry,” Emma said, and his sweet innocent face, just--

Her kid should really be a much better liar, considering who his parents were.

“Let it go, Em,” Ruby said. “Also, he’s coming back.” She gestured, the stick with its burned marshmallow pointed out into the night and toward Game of Thorns and Killian’s solitary figure walking through the snow, small exhalations of breath preceding him as he left footprints in his wake.

“Let’s switch seats, Henry,” Ruby said. “Over here.”

Emma gathered her blankets--all three of them--around herself and stared very determinedly into the fire. She knew what she _wanted_ to do. She didn’t know what she was going to do.

And she had _no idea_ what the fuck he was going to do.

He’d never told her.

She understood why--she wasn’t angry--it was just a _lot_.

The noise, the sad wistful noise of inevitability and resignation, it all made a little more sense now. So that was something, and--

“Hello, beautiful.”

His eyes hurt to look at, his stupid, ridiculous, unfairly-blue eyes all focused on her like they were the only two people in the universe. Emma turned back to the fire.

“So I think we need to talk,” he said. She made a noise, all resigned and sad and almost a laugh because--

“I feel like when someone says that, it’s not usually the beginning of a pleasant conversation.”

He laughed, and it was a lovely sound, gentle and reassuring, and she looked up at him again, where he was leaning over the back of her chair, one hand all casual, his hair perfectly messy under his knit cap.

“I don’t do this very often,” he said.

“Talk about stuff?”

His grin turned wry. “Apologize, love.”

“I’ll treasure it,” she deadpanned.

He pulled something out of his pocket and dropped it into her lap, then kneeled down behind her chair. Emma picked up the box of Milk Duds and smiled, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“Valentine’s Day candygram,” she said. “Just like when we were kids.”

“Aye,” he said, his breath tickling her ear.

“I’m not mad at you, Killian,” Emma said. “You have nothing to apologize for. I’m the one that was too self-centered to even notice--”

“Shhh,” he murmured.

“I was the one being stupid,” Emma said, “just, you know, I really like kissing you.”

He laughed. “Noted, Swan. The feeling is, I assure you, quite mutual.”

“I had no idea about your hand, Killian. I wasn’t trying to--honestly, it never even _occurred_ to me until Belle told me.” Emma paused. “She _yelled_ at me, actually.”

“Yelled at me, as well,” Killian admitted.

“She can really be angry when she gets going,” Emma said.

Killian laughed, an exhalation from his nostrils.

“Killian?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you for helping me today.”

Another sigh. “It was no bother, love. It was the right thing to do.”

Emma toyed with the box in her hand. She didn’t want to be an idiot. She didn’t want to wait for holidays to feel the kind of hug that Killian could give.

She really, really wanted to see what he could do with his hands. And--other things.

“Killian?”

“Yeah?” She could hear his smile in the word.

“I would like to kiss you more than once every five years.”

He made a noise that was neither sad nor resigned, but content--a noise that thrummed through her body from the point where it tickled at her ear all the way down to her toes, with a healthy detour through the parts of her that really wanted to see what he could do with his hands. It was a chuckle, or really more like a purr, smooth but rough at the edges.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” he said, standing up and dragging a chair to face her. He settled himself, his left hand dislodging from behind his back, where she hadn’t even noticed he’d been keeping it--so obviously the progress on being less self-centered was going to have to wait for another day.

“And, you know, not casually--”

It was a bouquet of roses, tied up in every color of ribbon that had dangled from the walls of Game of Thorns, with a string of paper hearts trailing from the stems, that’s what was in his hands. Red--that meant love. Orange and coral--desire. Lavender--

Lavender was _love at first sight._

She pulled the lavender rose carefully out of the bouquet and studied it for a moment.

“All this time?” she asked.

“Aye,” he said.

“Since we were fourteen?”

“Aye,” he said.

“Even while you were gone?”

“I didn’t leave because of you, you know that.” His turn to pause. “You do know that, yes?”

Emma nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “I do.”

“Life happened, Swan,” he says. “I don’t regret it. That doesn’t mean there was ever a day that went by I didn’t think of you.”

Emma smiled. She--just, wow. She understood that. She--

She really wanted to kiss him again.

“Will you go out with me?” She said it all in a rush.

“I was going to ask you the same question,” he said.

“Well,” Emma said. “We _do_ make a good team.” Third time, and maybe now Emma knew it for sure, knew what she’d always hoped as she threw off her blankets--all three of them--and reached for the lapels of his coat, pulling him slowly toward her, leaning in inch by inch, letting their noses touch and their foreheads brush before he kissed her, gently, devouring her. It was everything--his fingers, the metal, his lips and tongue and the way he opened for her--exactly the way she craved.

And suddenly it wasn’t that fucking cold outside on Valentine’s Day in Storybrooke, Maine after all.

Still.

Emma really shouldn’t have been surprised to see _that_ was the picture Ruby had sent to _The Portland Press Herald._

“Next year,” Ruby said smugly, “I am _so_ charging more for cocoa and s’mores.”

-30-

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [distractions (before she was mine)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27634399) by [Katie_Dub](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katie_Dub/pseuds/Katie_Dub)




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